Bulgaria Ski discussion board

I guess, when I go on holidays especially a ski holiday, I dont want to go shopping for food. I dont want to have to cook food, and most importantly I dont want to wash the dishes after having food.

I like to have a selection of food, and if I dont like it I like to go back up to the buffet and get more. I like to pile up the protein at night, and pile up the carbs at breakfast. This I can do in a hotel.

I enjoy the luxury of a hotel in a ski village, and if I want a swim, sauna, jacuzzi, its right there in the hotel.

When on a ski holiday, at the end of skiing I/we like to go for a few pints. If we want to eat at 6, 8, or 10pm we can return to our hotel and be served dinner. As I said above, for an extra E135 for the week we have all this, and broken down its a little over E20 per day extra to staying in an appartment and having to feed yourself.

Regarding skiing, I know what you all mean with the extra pistes etc, but how much skiing in a day will you do? From the top of the mountain to the bottom in Bansko twice a day is ample for me. This is over 40KMs.

I understand that Livigno has skiing at both sides of the village, but I found it a pain to have to go everywhere in a bus. In Bansko, if you are in the middle of the village you are only a few 100m from the gondola.

The gondola trip to mid station has to be one of the nicest journeys I will ever take. The scenery is fantastic, and breath taking.

For all the above reasons I/we enjoy Bansko, and enjoy staying in hotels in Bansko.

Going half term would be thte eternal nightmare for me so we are definately not going half term, but are going Feb 6th.

We were scheduled to go in January which would have worked out E100 cheaper per head, but with the possible piste closures because of the racing we opted to go later.

Charliemoonhead, totally agree about the cooking/washing up, afterall it is a holiday!
The difference in price of about €20 pp per night will just about feed you if you exclude drinks.
We also like a few apres ski, then go back get changed and then go out to eat, which also means we can choose somewhere different every night if we so wish.
We also prefer an apartment as with 4 of us a 2 bedroom apartment gives a little more room.
In Livigno you do not have to get the ski bus, most of it can be walked and having both sides of the valley means you can ski in the sun all day! It also gives a much greater variety of skiing and differing views.
I have not been to Bansko so cant comment on the skiing there, but Pamps is really pretty with all runs through the trees, in Livigno the skiing is mainly above the tree line with only the runs back to the valley floor through trees.
Unfortunately I am stuck with the school holidays for the next few years so self-catering DIY is the best option for me.
I am not trying to change yours (or anybody elses) views just stating what it is like in Livigno.
To check it out try "skipasslivigno.com", has some great videos.
It took a lot of persuading for me to move on from Pamps (and a lot of research!), but I'm glad we tried somewhere else.
Will definately be back at some time though!

Dan the man...We stayed at the Grand Arena last year.

It cost us exactly E1000 each, but this year the tour operator wanted E1300.

Last year we made friend with people that stayed in the Lion, and we were able to sus out the facilities. To be honest there isnt over E600 worth of value staying in The Kempinski, to staying in The Lion.

Dont get me wrong, the Kempinski is luxury, and is beside the Gondola....you can almost ski in the back door. The swimming pool etc are fantastic....but compared to The Lion we couldnt see any reason to pay E600 extra per head to stay there this year.